What I did (and why): I decided to interview (by telephone) 12 different individuals. Each of these individuals were selected based on a certain criteria: they were current (or former) educators, and they had experience working with iPads in the classroom. The reason why I wanted the teachers to have experience working with iPads (or tablets) in the classroom was because "how do iPads improve classroom instruction?" was my research question. My original intent was to focus on high school students, as the students at RiverBluff High School and the Personal Mobile Computing Initiative passed in order to ensure 1:1 education at the school (and also to other schools in the district) were my original inspiration for my research question; however, I was on a strict time limit to accomplish my data collection. As the week turned to days, and days turned to hours, I began to care less about the grade level experience the teachers had, and more on gathering the information from them. As mentioned in The Context (Introduction), I ended up only successfully interviewing three of the original 12 educators. As such, I spiraled into somewhat of a panic, and decided to interview the one River Bluff High School Student I have access to on basically a daily basis (please see video below) and I also utilized YouTube. I recognize this is not a valid data substitution for a true Qualitative Research Project; however, I felt frustrated, out of options, and - most importantly - out of time. I did reach out to my first interviewee, Ron Bosch, and although we exchanged a few texts, we were never able to conduct an additional interview as I had hoped.
Data I collected: I collected data from three interviews. I also collected data from a personal video interview of a River Bluff High School freshman. Lastly, I relied on my original interview with Ron Bosch, who is the Technology Integration Specialist at Lexington County School District 1 in Lexington, South Carolina. Ron and I had a video interview scheduled, but unfortunately, he had to cancel, and I could not locate the rough draft notes I used for the first interview I conducted with Ron in his office at RBHS. Ron is actually the very first person I contacted at the start of the semester and after the projects were introduced to us, in September of 2014. I was, however, able to watch each of the videos on Ron's official YouTube channel and collect data.
How I collected the data: Of the three individuals who graciously gave me time from their busy schedules to interview them (Shay Sullivan, Kelsey Little, and Joseph Cussen), I asked them an identical series of questions:
1. What is your opinion of the basis of my Literature Review, which was "how do iPads improve classroom instruction?"
2. How much training do teachers require to use the iPad in their classroom?
3. How have you used the iPad in your classroom?
4. How have students responded to the iPad?
5. What are some drawbacks/disadvantages of using the iPad in your classroom?
6. Did funding play a role in the purchase of the iPads for your school/district?
My successes and difficulties in carrying out the data collection: My difficulties seemed to outweigh my successes with this final project. Very few of the individuals I reached out to for an interview responded to my request whatsoever. I understand this is their right, but it still frustrated me greatly. I reached out to everyone in my class. I reached out to several of my resources for my WIKI Part One, including Patrick Larkin and Kristin R. Bennett (although she works for Summit School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, I used her as a resource because when she was at Wake Forest University she invested a lot of time in revolutionizing K-12 education with 1:1 technology). I wanted to interview Patrick because his web site has such extensive data related to iPad classroom use. Unfortunately, he is an extremely busy man, and the interview just never happened. I also considered surveying my classmates, but was so focused on accomplishing interviews, that by the time I initiated that request, it was too late. Many of my classmates had already abandoned BlackBoard for the semester, as their semester ended a week prior to mine. The root of my challenges, of course, was in my new job. I am not a classroom teacher right now (disclaimer: I taught middle school in North Carolina from 2002-2006 and I do want to return to the classroom one day, in one form or another). I left the military in August of 2014. It took me until October of 2014 to secure employment, and that was with Verizon Wireless. My schedule was set from 9:00am until 7:00pm Monday through Friday, and my commute was over 30 minutes one way. I leave for work every day at 8:20am to avoid being late to work and being charged vacation time that I currently do not possess (as I have not spent enough time with the company to have any "free" or "personal" time in the bank). This ultimately meant that, in order to avoid traffic, my window of observation to collect data for an Action Research Project was less than five minutes, because my window of opportunity was in the mornings. I needed much more time than that! In other words: I could not observe a classroom as I had originally planned. The interviews were a back-up plan and not my personal preference. Additionally, the five teachers Ron Bosch requested I contact were each very consistent in ignoring me - whether I emailed them, or left them a message with the school secretary, none of the five teachers ever got back to me to set up an interview. I do not take this personally; in retrospect, I imagine I was simply too aggressive in my attempts to reach out to them, and this behavior discouraged them from returning my contact requests.
I also feel as if I should mention here that the interview I gained permission to record was accidentally deleted from my iPhone. This interview was intended to appear in the Findings section. Shay was kind enough to allow me to call him back for a follow-up interview; however, this one was not audio recorded. I recorded answers for Shay's interview the same way I recorded answers for Kelsey and Joseph (in a MS Word document).
Analytic Plan
What I did with the data once I collected it: Once I had the data from the interviews, I examined how it was similar and also how it was different. I laid the papers out on my kitchen table. I then identified common word usage and repetition from the interviews.
How I made sense of what I saw: My goal was simply to uncover a "like theme" or an "unlike theme." I wanted to determine what data could be connected and/or correlated.
I checked my understanding with a friend and former colleague of mine, Patrick Vernon. Patrick also has a YouTube page, but it is still under development and only consists of three videos. I chose not to interview Patrick because I already know him very well and did not want the data to be influenced; however, I also chose not to interview him because although he incorporates Google sites in his curriculum now, he does not use 1:1 technology at his school. From the videos, you can see that he incorporates the use of a smart board in his classroom, but not a 1:1 device. I also checked my understanding with the student I recorded on video showing me how she uses her iPad. Students, as it turns out, are absolutely fantastic at explaining how they use their devices, as they are the ones who use them every day! And although it may sound redundant, I also checked my understanding with the three teachers I interviewed; just by asking them questions, I was assured that I was on the right track and not destined for failure quite yet. Lastly, sometimes I sent Ron Bosch a few text messages whenever I had a question about the local 1:1 initiative.
Methods
What I did (and why): I decided to interview (by telephone) 12 different individuals. Each of these individuals were selected based on a certain criteria: they were current (or former) educators, and they had experience working with iPads in the classroom. The reason why I wanted the teachers to have experience working with iPads (or tablets) in the classroom was because "how do iPads improve classroom instruction?" was my research question. My original intent was to focus on high school students, as the students at RiverBluff High School and the Personal Mobile Computing Initiative passed in order to ensure 1:1 education at the school (and also to other schools in the district) were my original inspiration for my research question; however, I was on a strict time limit to accomplish my data collection. As the week turned to days, and days turned to hours, I began to care less about the grade level experience the teachers had, and more on gathering the information from them. As mentioned in The Context (Introduction), I ended up only successfully interviewing three of the original 12 educators. As such, I spiraled into somewhat of a panic, and decided to interview the one River Bluff High School Student I have access to on basically a daily basis (please see video below) and I also utilized YouTube. I recognize this is not a valid data substitution for a true Qualitative Research Project; however, I felt frustrated, out of options, and - most importantly - out of time. I did reach out to my first interviewee, Ron Bosch, and although we exchanged a few texts, we were never able to conduct an additional interview as I had hoped.
Data I collected: I collected data from three interviews. I also collected data from a personal video interview of a River Bluff High School freshman. Lastly, I relied on my original interview with Ron Bosch, who is the Technology Integration Specialist at Lexington County School District 1 in Lexington, South Carolina. Ron and I had a video interview scheduled, but unfortunately, he had to cancel, and I could not locate the rough draft notes I used for the first interview I conducted with Ron in his office at RBHS. Ron is actually the very first person I contacted at the start of the semester and after the projects were introduced to us, in September of 2014. I was, however, able to watch each of the videos on Ron's official YouTube channel and collect data.
How I collected the data: Of the three individuals who graciously gave me time from their busy schedules to interview them (Shay Sullivan, Kelsey Little, and Joseph Cussen), I asked them an identical series of questions:
1. What is your opinion of the basis of my Literature Review, which was "how do iPads improve classroom instruction?"
2. How much training do teachers require to use the iPad in their classroom?
3. How have you used the iPad in your classroom?
4. How have students responded to the iPad?
5. What are some drawbacks/disadvantages of using the iPad in your classroom?
6. Did funding play a role in the purchase of the iPads for your school/district?
My successes and difficulties in carrying out the data collection: My difficulties seemed to outweigh my successes with this final project. Very few of the individuals I reached out to for an interview responded to my request whatsoever. I understand this is their right, but it still frustrated me greatly. I reached out to everyone in my class. I reached out to several of my resources for my WIKI Part One, including Patrick Larkin and Kristin R. Bennett (although she works for Summit School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, I used her as a resource because when she was at Wake Forest University she invested a lot of time in revolutionizing K-12 education with 1:1 technology). I wanted to interview Patrick because his web site has such extensive data related to iPad classroom use. Unfortunately, he is an extremely busy man, and the interview just never happened. I also considered surveying my classmates, but was so focused on accomplishing interviews, that by the time I initiated that request, it was too late. Many of my classmates had already abandoned BlackBoard for the semester, as their semester ended a week prior to mine. The root of my challenges, of course, was in my new job. I am not a classroom teacher right now (disclaimer: I taught middle school in North Carolina from 2002-2006 and I do want to return to the classroom one day, in one form or another). I left the military in August of 2014. It took me until October of 2014 to secure employment, and that was with Verizon Wireless. My schedule was set from 9:00am until 7:00pm Monday through Friday, and my commute was over 30 minutes one way. I leave for work every day at 8:20am to avoid being late to work and being charged vacation time that I currently do not possess (as I have not spent enough time with the company to have any "free" or "personal" time in the bank). This ultimately meant that, in order to avoid traffic, my window of observation to collect data for an Action Research Project was less than five minutes, because my window of opportunity was in the mornings. I needed much more time than that! In other words: I could not observe a classroom as I had originally planned. The interviews were a back-up plan and not my personal preference. Additionally, the five teachers Ron Bosch requested I contact were each very consistent in ignoring me - whether I emailed them, or left them a message with the school secretary, none of the five teachers ever got back to me to set up an interview. I do not take this personally; in retrospect, I imagine I was simply too aggressive in my attempts to reach out to them, and this behavior discouraged them from returning my contact requests.
I also feel as if I should mention here that the interview I gained permission to record was accidentally deleted from my iPhone. This interview was intended to appear in the Findings section. Shay was kind enough to allow me to call him back for a follow-up interview; however, this one was not audio recorded. I recorded answers for Shay's interview the same way I recorded answers for Kelsey and Joseph (in a MS Word document).
Analytic Plan
What I did with the data once I collected it: Once I had the data from the interviews, I examined how it was similar and also how it was different. I laid the papers out on my kitchen table. I then identified common word usage and repetition from the interviews.
How I made sense of what I saw: My goal was simply to uncover a "like theme" or an "unlike theme." I wanted to determine what data could be connected and/or correlated.
I checked my understanding with a friend and former colleague of mine, Patrick Vernon. Patrick also has a YouTube page, but it is still under development and only consists of three videos. I chose not to interview Patrick because I already know him very well and did not want the data to be influenced; however, I also chose not to interview him because although he incorporates Google sites in his curriculum now, he does not use 1:1 technology at his school. From the videos, you can see that he incorporates the use of a smart board in his classroom, but not a 1:1 device. I also checked my understanding with the student I recorded on video showing me how she uses her iPad. Students, as it turns out, are absolutely fantastic at explaining how they use their devices, as they are the ones who use them every day! And although it may sound redundant, I also checked my understanding with the three teachers I interviewed; just by asking them questions, I was assured that I was on the right track and not destined for failure quite yet. Lastly, sometimes I sent Ron Bosch a few text messages whenever I had a question about the local 1:1 initiative.